A few years ago, I visited a friend in Raleigh, N.C, who belongs to a racquet club tucked back off a busy suburban road. She showed me a nice set of clay courts and then waved me into a warehouse-type building that housed four indoor tennis courts — right next to a giant bubble covering six more.
Rain, flooding, snow, ice, dangerously humid 98-degree days, the weather extremes becoming more and more frequent? ‘Incredible,” I thought, “she still gets to play.”
In Charleston — a mecca for nationally ranked junior and senior tennis players as well as multitudes of league players — no such comfort, no such luck. You must be a hardy soul to play year-round here, or, sometimes, a foolhardy soul.
A friend and I grabbed an old broom and swept the snow and slush off part of a Moultrie playground court a few years ago so we could hit on a narrow strip of dry asphalt. Another friend drove by and filmed us, then sent the video around, eliciting finger wags for risking injury. (Let it be said that the Moultrie tennis pro applauded our “dedication.”)
The past few freezing weeks, we keep hearing, “You’re not playing tennis in this, are you?” Well, yes. Here’s how you do it.
While your spouse is reading the morning paper, you wrap yourself in six layers of clothing, wool hat and gloves and slip out the back door as quietly as possible. As you work up a sweat, you peel off two layers and the glove off the dominant hand. Leave the tennis bag in the car when you get home for plausible deniability.
Just realize you’re one of the reasons the head of maintenance at the Maybank Tennis Club took down the clay-court nets on the eve of last weekend’s plunge into the 20s. At the LTP Daniel Island tennis center, the clay courts froze and took over five days to recover despite 70-degree weather, leaving many diehards mired in grief.
When hard courts get wet, they become slick and dangerous. But clay courts can absorb a long drizzle before they turn into a skating rink. The diehards have been known to find a few unpuddled patches of clay to stand on until common sense or a downpour prevails.
On Daniel Island two years ago, the wind was so fierce it knocked over a tractor trailer on an I-526 bridge. On the courts below, the seniors in a national tournament played on as those 50 mph winds blew the ball back over the net the opposite way before they had a chance to hit it.
Cancel the match? Move it indoors? Not in Charleston. Not a roof in sight.
More than 40 years ago, there actually were a few indoor courts in West Ashley. Rumor has it they were bulldozed to make way for a family rec center.
To play indoors today, you would have to drive to Columbia or Greenville. Unless, of course, you switch to the upstart sport pickle ball, which already has eight indoor courts as part of a restaurant called Crush Yard in Mount Pleasant, not to mention 36 beers on draft.
Way too cushy for the diehards.
Notes
• The Lowcountry Tennis Association recently held their annual captains’ meeting, with over 200 members participating in the different rating levels. About five years ago, there were only four 2.5 (beginner) teams, and today there are over sixty 2.5 teams.
• The 2024 Dee Mack Scholarship worth $1,000 will be given to the top high school player at this year’s Credit One Charleston Open. Kate Johnson of Oceanside Collegiate Academy won the award this year.